Twenty-three people were killed when an Indonesian passenger plane crashed on landing in the city of Yogyakarta, but around 100 escaped alive from the burning wreckage.

The plane was carrying many Australian journalists and diplomats

Passengers said the Garuda Boeing 737 was shaking violently as it approached the runway, and some reports said the nosewheel tyre exploded, sending the aircraft skidding out of control and off the tarmac, where it burst into flames and explosions shook its twisted frame.

"It ran about 300 metres off the runway," said First Air Marshal Benyamin Dandel, the air force commander at the airport, adding that parts of the aircraft, including the wheels and the wings, were left behind.

The passengers included Din Syamsuddin, the head of Muhammadiyah, the country's second-largest Muslim organisation.

"Some passengers wanted to get their hand luggage. I cried to them, 'Get out, get out'," he said.

“I saw a foreigner. His clothes were on fire. The plane was full of smoke. I just jumped from two metres high and landed in a rice field."

Moments later, as the fire apparently reached a fuel tank, flames billowed into the sky.

"Thank God I survived," he added.

The fire took around two hours to bring under control, and Captain Yos Bintoro, an airport official, said: “I saw many bodies, dozens of bodies badly burnt near the exit. I saw people dead in the cockpit."

Reports conflicted about the number of casualties. Garuda, the national airline, said 22 passengers and one crew member had died, but a government official earlier put the toll at 49. There were 133 people on board.

At least 10 Australians were on board, including diplomats and journalists going to Java's cultural centre for an event with the Australian foreign minister Andrew Downer, who was not on the aircraft. Five were injured, and five remained unaccounted for.

Mr Downer said that two survivors, both in the Australian air force, had told him the aircraft landed too fast.

He said: "... the two who are in the best health told me that the plane came hurtling in to the runway at a much greater speed than an aeroplane would normally land at.

"They themselves thought the plane would never stop in the length of the runway, which it duly didn't. They just ploughed across the end of the runway, across a road, hit a bank and a culvert and went into a paddy field. When it hit the bank and the culvert, it exploded."

John Howard, the Australian prime minister, said there was no indication of terrorism.

“It is a terrible tragedy," he said. “Many lives have been lost, and our love and sympathy and condolences go to those who are suffering distress and grief."

The crash is the latest in a series in Indonesia, where several budget airlines compete ferociously for business.

A spokesman for the British embassy said no Britons were believed to have been on board.

Indonesia has been hit by a string of transport disasters in recent months.

In late December, a passenger ferry sank in a storm in the Java Sea, killing more than 400 people.

Days later in January a passenger plane operated by the budget airline Adam Air crashed into the ocean, killing all 102 people on board.

In February another ship sank near the capital’s port, leaving at least 50 dead.

The government responded by saying it would ban local commercial airlines from operating planes more than 10 years old, though most experts say maintenance and the number of take-offs and landings are the most important factors in preventing accidents.

Earlier this week dozens of people were killed and hundreds of buildings flattened by an earthquake on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. [telegraph.co.uk]

5 September 2005 - An Indonesian passenger plane with over 100 people on board crashed into a residential area shortly after taking off from the northern city of Medan, officials said. The Mandala Airlines jet bound for Jakarta crashed minutes after take-off from Polonia airport in Medan on the island of Sumatra.

Transport Minister Hatta Radjasa told reporters in Yogyakarta that 23 of the 140 passengers and crew on board died. Garuda said the injured passengers were being treated at three hospitals.

Survivors, many of them bloodied and dazed, said the Boeing 737-400 shook violently as it approached Yogyakarta Airport and then shot off the runway, plowing through a fence and then coming to a halt in a rice field.

"Suddenly there was smoke inside the fuselage, it hit the runway and then it landed in a rice field," local Islamic leader Dien Syamsudin told el-Shinta radio station.

"I saw a foreigner. His clothes were on fire and I jumped from the emergency exit. Thank God I survived."

The government ordered an investigation into the crash, the third involving a commercial jetliner in the country in as many months.

The nationalities of the dead and injured were not released.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered a thorough investigation into the crash, appointing the security minister to look into possible "nontechnical" causes, said spokesman Andi Mallarangeng, in an apparent reference to sabotage.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) -- Moments before a Garuda Indonesian jet slammed into the ground Friday, killing at least 200 people, its pilot asked for help landing because of poor visibility, official media reported Saturday.

The pilot of the Airbus jet radioed Medan air traffic controllers for guidance minutes before the crash, state-owned Antara News Agency reported. The pilot had complained of low visibility because of a smoky haze, the report said.

The plane crashed Friday about 20 miles (30 kilometers) short of Medan airport in North Sumatra.

The haze has been blamed on fires raging in the region's rain forests.

All 238 aboard the A-300 Airbus were feared dead. The plane went down early Friday afternoon about 15 minutes before it was to land at Medan, a major commodities and trading center.

Shortly after dawn Saturday, rescue crews sifted through mountainside debris , but the search for survivors was increasingly grim. "We are afraid there are no survivors," one official said.

An airport official in Medan said a thick haze had covered the airport for the last two days.

There was no official word on the cause of the crash, but one official said, "It's probably the haze, but we're not sure."

Some of the worst fires have been smoldering across Sumatra for months, and several airports in other cities on the island, and elsewhere in the country, were closed Friday because of poor visibility.

In parts of Sumatra Thursday, visibility was down to less than 100 yards (meters).

Airport sources said Flight GA-152 lost contact with the Medan control tower at about 1:30 p.m. (0530 GMT). Rescue officials said the plane went down near the village of Buah Nabar in the Sibolangit district south of Medan.

A Garuda official said 222 passengers, including one child, and 16 crew members were on the flight. Most of those on board were believed to be Indonesians, but the plane was also carrying American, Dutch and Japanese passengers.

Sumatra is an Indonesian island divided into two almost equal parts by the equator. The southeastern Asian country of Indonesia is an archipelago of about 17,500 islands.

Bush fires across Sumatra island and Kalimantan have sent a choking, health-threatening haze across neighboring Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei. The smoke has also drifted as far as the southern Philippines and parts of Thailand, including the resort area of Phuket.

March 7 (Bloomberg) -- A PT Garuda Indonesia plane crashed in central Java, killing at least 21 people and increasing concerns about safety of travel in Indonesia, where three planes have crashed this year.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered an investigation into the country's transportation safety standards after two earlier crashes. In January, a 17 year-old PT Adam Skyconnection Airlines Boeing Co. 737-300 plane, carrying 102 people, plunged into the ocean off the coast of Indonesia's Sulawesi island and another plane broke up on landing in February.

``It's a serious problem when you have two fatal crashes in a short period of time,'' said Jim Eckes, managing director of Hong Kong-based Indoswiss Aviation, which advises airlines. ``There's a lot of indication that airlines in Indonesia are not being maintained properly or that pilot training isn't up to par.''

In today's crash, the plane's fuselage melted as it was consumed by flames about 100 meters off the runway, according to television reports. Sugeng Dwi Riyanto, a health ministry official, who had earlier reported there were 58 fatalities, said officials had double counted. Riyanto said he had seen 22 bodies.

Flight GA 200 originated in Jakarta and crashed as it landed in Yogyakarta at about 7 a.m. local time. There were 133 passengers and seven crew members aboard, according to Pujobroto, a Garuda spokesman, who uses one name.

Boeing Investigator

``A Boeing air safety investigator is in Indonesia and will assist with the investigation,'' said Boeing spokesman Ken Mercer from Seattle. ``Boeing expresses profound concern for the safety of the passengers and crew.''

Local hospitals were treating at least 62 people for injuries. The injured include at least 26 Indonesians, one Japanese and one Australian, Sif Wuryanto, a spokesman at a local hospital said by phone.

Four of nine Australians on the plane are missing, Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said in a briefing in Jakarta today. The rest are being treated in local hospitals, he said. Downer, who is in Indonesia to attend a conference on terrorism, will go to Yogyakarta later today.

Old Planes

About 80 percent to 90 percent of planes in Indonesia are over 10 years old, according to PT Lion Mentari Airlines spokesman Hasyim Arsal Alhabsyi.

Air transport is growing rapidly in Indonesia, driven by low fares. The number of passengers on domestic flights probably rose to about 32 million in 2006 from 29 million in 2005, Indonesian transport minister Hatta Rajasa said on Oct. 18. This compares with 23 million in 2004 and 6 million in 1999, Rajasa said.

``The accident may spark fear of travel given that Garuda has been the safety benchmark for the Indonesian airline industry,'' said Bambang Susantono, chairman of the Indonesian Transport Society, an independent group of transportation experts. ``We need a thorough evaluation of what happened.''

In 2004, there were 23 scheduled airlines operating and 37 licenses had been issued in Indonesia, according to the World Bank. Indonesia's sudden air transport development became possible by the collapse of the Suharto regime in 1998. Before 1999, there were five scheduled carriers and a few charter operators, the World Bank said.

Indonesia last month grounded seven of Adam Skyconnection Airlines's Boeing 737-300 planes, a third of its fleet, after the fuselage of one of its jets broke upon landing in Surabaya, East Java on Feb. 21.

On Feb. 28, Transport Minister Rajasa said Indonesia may ban airlines from buying older planes. The government may cut the maximum age used planes can be sold at to 10 years from the current 20, he said.

On Sept. 5, 2005, a PT Mandala Airlines jetliner crashed into a residential district North Sumatra province, killing 149 people.

To contact the reporter on this story: Berni Moestafa in Jakarta at bmoestafa@bloomberg.net ; Claire Leow in Jakarta at cleow@bloomberg.net .Last Updated: March 7, 2007 04:14 EST